Answer to bomb scare hoax might lie in location

Posted: Saturday, February 03, 2007

ATLANTA - The ado over Ignignokt and Err, the ornery digitized "Aqua Teen Hunger Force" stars whose ads caused a scare in Boston this week, might have been more about location than their menacing stares, blinking silhouettes and obscene gestures, an Atlanta police official said Friday.

In the two or three weeks since the ads debuted in Atlanta and nine other U.S. cities, Atlanta officials received no reports about the devices being suspicious or dangerous, said Atlanta Police Department spokesman Officer Joe Cobb.

After the hoax caused alarm in Boston on Wednesday, Cobb said Atlanta police contacted Turner Broadcasting to find out where the Atlanta devices had been placed. Company officials told them 10 devices had been scattered around Atlanta, with plans for a total of 52. But when police checked the sites for the devices, they found none.

Tim Cowley had passed the ad for days on his way into work, figuring it was just another guerilla-style commercial promotion or maybe artwork.

"I didn't know what it was," Cowley said. "We see so much stuff up there. I just figured it was one of the kids doing something funny."

By Thursday, he realized the device at his office was related to the furor in Boston. He took it down and kept it.

Cobb said the concern in Boston might have sprung from the placement of the devices at locations like railroad and bridge overpasses and train stations. In Atlanta, they were mostly placed in trendy neighborhoods.

"If an electronic device with a character making an obscene gesture was noticed on an overpass, highway, or government building, it would've raised the alarm differently than benign places like the outside of a bar or vacant building," Cobb said.

The network told the marketing company to decide where the devices should be placed, with the mandate they should be in places likely to be seen by young men. The target audience of the Adult Swim lineup on the Cartoon Network where the show airs is 18 to 24 years old and male.

Other cities with the devices included New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Seattle, Portland, Ore., Austin, Texas, San Francisco and Philadelphia.

Turner Broadcasting System apologized to Boston-area residents on Friday for a security scare that sent bomb squads checking out mysterious devices that were part of a nationwide marketing campaign for its subsidiary Cartoon Network.